


Priorities (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

by thespareoom



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, Senator!reader - Freeform, Side Character: Riyo Chuchi, big sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespareoom/pseuds/thespareoom
Summary: After years of infrequent meetups with Obi-Wan in secret, you decide you have to put yourself first, even if that means continuing your life without him
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	Priorities (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

**Author's Note:**

> this was built off a request using the dialogue prompts of "I love you, please don't go." and "You look amazing tonight"

Your feet lightly click across the marble floor as you enter the circular gala space. Another evening set up for the illusion of friendly negotiations. Insults tossed across conversation, coated in sugar and mixed intentions. Exactly the environment you excel in. Events like these could seem dull, boring to some, but they were first and foremost a tool and you had things to accomplish.  
You glide over to a pillar on the outskirts of the room, leaning to the side, one arm resting against the cool stone. You often start these types of events in a spot like this, tucked away at the edge of the crowd, cast in a slight shadow. It gave you space to plan your strategy, to scope out the room. From this vantage point, you can see every conversation taking place between your colleagues. A light breeze blows in through the open balcony behind you, tickling the skin exposed by the open back of your evening wear.  
“You look amazing tonight,” a voice, low and warm and familiar, whispered just over your shoulder. You hadn’t noticed him come in, but you didn’t have to turn to know the voice was his. You could pick out Obi-Wan’s melodic tone in any crowded room. His whispered words had filled your ears during countless nights in the past.  
“Thanks,” you toss back at him. You keep your gaze out on the room before you, scanning the party for conversations you might need to join. Politics was nothing more than a giant puzzle composed of people. Small talk, appeasing different interest groups, manipulating various relationships. Galas and parties like these, they were simply fancily dressed diplomacy and ass-kissing. Some might consider it conniving, but it all served a larger purpose. Peoples across the galaxy relied on your influence for their very survival. If it took a little sleezing to sustain planets and ensure their autonomy, that seemed a perfectly worthwhile trade off.   
“I don’t really have the time to flirt with you tonight,” you reply dryly, continuing your assessment of the room. You could feel him standing right over your shoulder. “I have important conversations to tend to.”  
“Of course, very important.” His tone dripped with sarcasm, and you didn’t need to see him know he was rolling his eyes. He never did warm up to your work. But he sure had warmed up to you. A shiver crawls up your spine as you feel his warm fingers start to lightly trace patterns across the bare skin on your back. The feeling was intoxicating, just this whisper of contact heats your entire body. You relax imperceptibly into his touch, a shift barely noticeable to anyone else but you alone.  
“Don’t you have something better to do? Some damsel to protect?” A low laugh rumbles in his chest at the slight tremble that sneaks its way into your voice. His fingertips continue their exploration, teasing at the edge of the fabric at your waist. Your brain fogs, obscuring all thoughts except for those of his fingers on your skin. Your fiery tongue had a reputation across the galaxy, but he could render you speechless with just a slight touch.  
Falling in love with Obi-Wan had snuck up on you, all those years ago, concealed and disguised until suddenly, loving him was all you knew. It touched every corner of your life, colored every day you lived. Loving him was like a fire, at times blazing so bright it consumed everything but the two of you. Other times, it smoldered low and long, keeping you warm and safe. When you needed him, it burned like a candle in the night, a light that always guided you home.  
“Will I see you tonight?” he asks, barely audible behind your ear. Despite his teasing, he sounds almost nervous, concerned that you might turn him away. No matter how long you’d spent with him, he never lost that hint of shyness. His knuckle continues traveling the length of your spine. A smile teases the corner of your lips, your face breaking it’s neutral mask, only for a second.  
Across the room, you spy Senators Chuchi, Amidala, and Organa gathered in a circle, engaged in friendly debate. Three of your closest allies, crafting a lobbying strategy with them would make for an effective evening. That, you decide, is where your night will begin.  
“Maybe so.” You separate from the soft brush of his fingers, pushing off the cool marble, and step out of the shadowed edge of the room into the bright rotunda. Without a glance back at him, you weave your way across the floor to begin the night of small talk and artful compromise.   
You reach the circle where your peers are gathered, discussing your recently drafted relief bill for an Outer Rim planet. As the distance between yourself and Obi-Wan expands, thoughts of his sweet touch are overpowered by ones of intense longing. Longing for him to spend this evening, all of your evenings, by your side instead of walking parallel paths, both pretending you don’t revolve around each other. You do your best to shake thoughts of the Jedi out of your mind and center yourself on the task ahead. The evening had barely begun, and it was far too early to be this distracted. You had work to do that was bigger than yourself, more important than whatever you desired.   
The four of you develop a plan for the few senators whose votes you still needed. Bail and Padmé tackle one side of the room while you and Riyo loop around to the other. It was always a pleasure to work with a senator like her. Although a younger member of the body, Riyo had wisdom beyond her years, beyond many of her colleagues. She saw politics much the same as you, and her dedication and pragmatic nature made her a valuable ally. She was also your most trusted friend and the only one you’d ever told about your relationship with Obi-Wan.   
“He’s staring at you again,” she teases you with a grin. You shoot her a sharp glance which only made her laugh. She found the whole scenario comical, but you often fail to see the humor of it. Especially tonight. Tonight, you just felt tired of it all. Sneaking around with Obi-Wan was exciting, thrilling, when you were younger. But these days, all you wanted was a settled life with him, a life where he was around more than every once in a while. A life you knew he could not give you. She senses the heaviness in you this evening and throws an arm around your shoulder.  
“Come on, let’s get to schmoozing,” she says, redirecting your attention. You allow yourself a moment to rest against her embrace, absorbing her silent support, before straightening your back and tossing her a smile.  
“Let’s go.”

Hours later, all the necessary votes had been promised, favors exchanged, and you felt secure knowing your bill would pass in the upcoming session. This point in the evening normally found you searching out Obi-Wan to signal you were leaving. You try to convince yourself to exit the party without telling him, to forget about spending the night with him. Anything to avoid the inevitable split that comes every morning when he can’t stay any longer.   
But then you think of all the moments you’d never see, if he never came by. The way his face finally relaxes as soon as the door shuts behind him, letting go of a bit of the tension he always holds. The way he always lets you ramble on about the minutiae of seemingly insignificant legislation, despite his disdain for your profession. How he tucks his feet underneath him while he listens to you, enraptured by your every word. The feeling of his skin, soft and endless under your fingertips, when you inevitably tumble into bed. That whispered _fuck _he could never seem to hold in when surrounded by you. The comfort of his slow breath against your neck as he slept curled against your side.  
But the next morning, he always left. He always had to leave. Thinking about that moment, when he’d vanish from your life yet again, it made your chest tighten with desire. For more time, for more of him, for more than he’s free to give. The smartest decision would be to just disappear, to retire to your quarters alone. But you could no more deny yourself a night with him than you could will yourself to stop breathing. To feel him pressed up against you, a perfect fit, skin sweaty, breath heavy in your ear. To have just one night wrapped up in him until the sun comes up. Time in his arms came in finite quantities, and you were helpless to turn it away. You look around for a minute before spying him on the far side of the hall. He catches your eye, and you give him a slight nod before exiting.   
You walk slowly back to your quarters, a sense of foreboding snaking up inside of you, squeezing around your heart. The war raged inside between your love for him and the desire for more that swallowed you up every time you watched him leave. And after all this time of fighting yourself, you feel like simply surrendering, giving in to the inevitable forces pulling you apart.   
Years had passed since your first night with Obi-Wan. Back then, you’d both been younger, more reckless. Your life had been in danger, he was your protector. Accidental nights together transformed over time into stolen moments, a hidden kiss, a whispered confession for only the darkness to hear. The threat passed, he left your service, but he stayed in your heart, etched into your very soul. Every time you ended up on the same planet, you found each other again.  
And slowly, without your permission, out of sight, you’d fallen in love with him. Secret nights of sweaty bodies blossomed into evenings of dinner and dancing in the setting sun, falling asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing, limbs tangled together.  
And as you fell deeper and deeper into the fullness of him, the more intensely you felt his absence. And the more you loved him, the more you fell apart every time the sun rose, every time he walked out, headed off again to some planet, Maker knows where. The look in his eyes when he leaves, screaming with an unvoiced desire to choose you, to stay, but he just can’t. He’s torn and so are you, between the duty you each have and the love you share.  
And tonight will be yet another of those nights where the morning comes too fast and before you can blink, he’ll be gone again. The idea of watching him walk out the door and disappear, yet again, it threatens to swallow you up for good.   
By the time Obi-Wan showed up at your door, you had submitted to the inevitable. Clinging to him felt like trying to grab onto water, constantly slipping through your fingers even as you tried to hold on to more. And now, there was nothing else to do but let go.   
You’d rehearsed over and over the speech that would sever the tie, praying you could maintain the strength to see it through. Leaving him might tear up your heart, but continuing on, only able to love him in part, would shatter you anyways.  
He walks in, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. Immediately, he wraps you up in his arms, pressing his face into your neck, inhaling the scent of your skin. Your arms circle around him, almost a reflex at this point, pulling him closer. One hand on the back of his head, the other looped around his waist, you try to memorize this moment, the last one before you let him go. Tears blur your sight, threatening to fall down your face, but you pull them back, saving them for later. Once he’s gone. You try to hide the flicker of emotion, but you know he’s already sensed your mood.  
“What’s wrong?” he murmurs, resting his head in the crook of your shoulder, lazily pressing his lips into the space there. His fingertips run lightly up and down your back, trying to bring you comfort. You close your eyes, relishing in this last moment of touch from him, before backing away. His eyes meet yours, so full of love and care. You think for a moment maybe you could just let all your concerns go, throw caution to the wind, if only it meant you could keep this man. But it would only ever be temporary. You brush a thumb across the scruff on his cheek before letting your hand fall to your side.   
“I-I can’t keep doing this, Obi,” you finally reply. “Meeting in secret, a night stolen together every few months, it’s just, it’s not enough anymore. I need more of you.”  
He falls back into the chair behind him, shock written across his face. His eyes are wide, staring back at you filled with questions. For the first time since you’ve known him, he utterly looks lost, abandoned out at sea with nothing to cling to.   
“I don’t-”  
“-please let me finish,” you interrupt him. The speech you’d rehearsed over and over before he arrived tumbles out, each word chasing the last in a race to escape as fast as possible. Your words fill up every corner of the room, leaving no space for him to interrupt, to make promises he could never keep. You plow forward, knowing the only way to do what needs to be done is to not allow any space for objections. You tell him how tired you are of having to watch him leave, how much you always wish he would come back and stay, forever. How he makes you feel whole, seen and accepted and understood like no one else. How being with him feels like all the stars aligned at once, just to bring you this moment together. How you could spend every day of your life by his side and never grow tired of him. How there’s no one else in the galaxy you’d rather grow old with.   
Your hands start shaking beside you, and you clasp them together, trying to steady yourself as you push through the last of what you have to say. You’re running out of words, but you reach to find more, anything to keep talking, knowing the end of this speech means the end of your tie to each other.  
“But I know, Obi, I know you can’t be here, can’t be with me. I know that. I do.” You choke on the tears threatening again to spring forth from your eyes. “But I miss you. All the fucking time. It’s tearing me apart. And I can’t keep on like this.”  
He reaches out to hold onto your fingers, tangling them up with his own. He stares at them for a long time, sliding his thumb across yours. Your heart clenches at the sight of him in pain. Everything in you wants to reach out, to rescue him from the chasm you’ve opened between you.  
“I love you, please don’t do this.” His eyes look up into yours, pleading with you. The confession, one so forbidden, one he’d always held inside, never giving space for it to exist, it picks at your heart, chipping away at the self-preservation you wear as armor. Your determination to see this break through stretches, pulling the inside of you apart as you look down into his begging eyes. You don’t tell him you love him too, even though your heart screams it out with every beat. Pulling him back in only to push him out again would only be cruel now.  
You stare down at the places where your fingers connect, he stares at you. The silence stretches on and on, you waiting for him to say something else, him waiting for you to change your mind. You wait, unable to look at him, hoping something, anything will change, if only you wait long enough. That he might not have obligations anymore, that you might not have yours. That maybe, if you sit in the quiet long enough, the world might fade away until only the two of you remain. But no amount of time could bridge the rift between your two lives.  
“Please-” His voice breaks on the sound, and finally you look up to see tears quietly break loose from his eyes. He doesn’t make any promises, doesn’t argue things will change or get any better. He knows those would all be lies. For the moment at least, you’re grateful he doesn’t try to weave this tapestry of fantasy, to cling on a little longer to what’s unraveling before you. You’d both been stitching little moments together for so long, hoping to make something beautiful, only to look back and see you created a life full of holes. And it just can’t be fixed.   
You start to pull away, to take your hands away from his, but he holds tight, standing up to close the space between you. His arms loop around you, holding you into his chest as his forehead falls to rest against yours. His tears spill onto your cheeks, mixing with your own as they slide down your face. You place a hand on each side of his neck, holding him to you, for one moment longer.   
And then the moment breaks. His hands cover yours as he pulls back to press his lips into your forehead. He pauses there for one second, then another. His fingers squeeze yours, and then, he’s gone. And you’re left, alone, broken, hoping someday you might up patch the void where he used to be.__


End file.
